International Journal of Qualitative Methods (Feb 2015)

Imagination as Method

  • Michael Thomas Hayes,
  • Pauline Sameshima,
  • Francene Watson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691501400105
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14

Abstract

Read online

In the article the authors argue for the imagination as a central method in ethnography employed to create a more abundant, just, and connected planet. Imagination is the creative energy that links conscious with the generation of the world of material experience. Through imagination the ethnographer becomes immersed in a space of play in which the world can be imagined as something not yet or in emergence, rather than as it is. Our hope is that by employing imagination in this way, ethnography can be focused to generating new possibilities for life on the planet.